Tell Stories to Build Brand Awareness

We use the “Hasselhoff” to build brand awareness across organization, brand, culture, management, and leadership.

How can we get people to look more closely at a company, culture, leader or brand – and make the moment more interesting, impactful, and memorable? Or, in “marketing speak”, how can we create “brand salience,” or awareness – to make sure the company stands out and people recognize it and are aware of it? After more than a few drinks, we came up with the “Hasselhoff”.

The goal of a Hasslehoff is to build brand awareness and introduce people to an organization, employer brand, company culture, or leader.

We use the Hasslehoff to highlight something or someone inside the organization. It could be the CEO’s favorite charity or their reputation for hiring and cultivating people who later move on to become highly successful leaders. We rely heavily on curated videos and biographies found on the web, and we work hard to weave a narrative around a key quality, characteristic, attribute or value. We try to keep the focus on the insight we are working to highlight. Sometimes, we include a section called “How He/She Did It” and use that moment to prove out an insight. When done right, it can have quite an impact.

In our original Hasslehoff, our readers met David Hasslehoff (of course), an American actor who was told had little promise, but surprised everyone and starred in one of the most watched television shows in the world. All-to-often, we see successful people in occupations after they have “arrived”, but we rarely see the real sacrifices required to excel. We use the Hasslehoff to shed light, create awareness and “brand salience”, and to provide the opportunity for a view into an organization.

Example:

The Hasslehoff

Object

Weak market awareness

Challenge

Improved awareness and association

Goal

Category

We use the "Hasselhoff" to introduce people to an organization, employer brand, culture and/or leader by way of highlighting a unique character trait, attribute or ability.

About TalentSum

TalentSum, a talent acquisition consultancy and best practices implementation firm, combines strategy, marketing, technology, sourcing and analytics to deliver work in a way that transforms how our clients attract, engage and hire their people.

We do this because we believe strategic talent acquisition creates a real competitive advantage for the business, supports the objectives of talent leaders, hiring managers and recruiting professionals, and can lead to highly engaged employees and high-performing cultures.